and their food after that?’

He replied, ‘The bull of Paradise will be slaughtered for them—the one that used to graze along its borders.’

The Jew asked, ‘And what will be their drink with it?’

He answered, ‘From a spring therein called Salsabil.’

The Jew said, ‘You have spoken the truth.

‘I have also come to ask you about something that no one on earth knows except a prophet—or perhaps one man, or two.’

The Prophet said, ‘Will it benefit you if I tell you?’

He replied, ‘I will listen with my own ears.’

The Jew said, ‘I have come to ask you about offspring.’

The Prophet said, ‘ The man’s fluid is white and the woman’s fluid is yellow. When they meet and the man’s fluid prevails over the woman’s, the child is a boy by Allah’s permission; and when the woman’s fluid prevails over the man’s, the child is a girl by Allah’s permission.’

The Jew declared, ‘You have spoken the truth, and you are indeed a prophet,’ and then he departed.

The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—remarked, ‘He asked me about these matters, and I knew nothing of them until Allah, Exalted is He, informed me.’

Abu Dawud al-Tayalisi also narrated: ʿAbd al-Hamid ibn Bahrām told us, from